Quality of Care

Overall age-adjusted mortality

How can we know if the performance of the health system overall in the U.S. is good and if it is getting better or worse over time? Can a meaningful and reasonably understandable set of national quality measures be identified, accepted by key constituencies, and tracked in ways that allow system-level performance to have a […]

A new study examining the value of cancer care in the United States compared to Western Europe ignited a string of responses and discussion regarding the best way to measure the quality of cancer care.

While there are widely agreed upon ways to measure spending on healthcare, measuring the quality of care delivered is a more difficult undertaking with less consensus on the best metrics and less systematic data available. Simple measures of health outcomes …

The March 2015 issue of Health Affairs takes a look at the benefits and limitations of how health information is gathered and shared with patients, providers, and purchasers. With growing efforts to boost transparency in the health system by collecting …

While health spending growth has slowed in recent years, over the long-term healthcare costs have grown significantly, with per capita spending increasing about tenfold since the early 1980s. Health spending growth has consistently outpaced U.S. economic growth and is higher …

Analysis of OECD data shows that the U.S. has the highest rate of infant mortality among comparably wealthy countries. The OECD data are limited, however, in that countries vary in the methods by which they report infant mortality.

In assessing the effectiveness of a medication or treatment, the number of years by which the treatment extends life is not the only measure of interest. We also want to maintain or improve quality of life. Quality adjusted life years …

Cardiovascular disease and stroke are the first and fourth leading causes of death in the United States, and U.S. mortality from circulatory system diseases is relatively high compared to similarly wealthy OECD countries. Yet, a recent study reveals that hospitalizations …

The federal government devotes significant resources toward the education and training of physicians, primarily through the Medicare program. Graduate medical education (GME) programs currently receive guaranteed federal financing totaling over $15 billion each year, which is used to finance the …